Another Take: Duelling narratives on the Rwandan genocide
The Take
Al Jazeera
4.7 • 748 Ratings
🗓️ 20 July 2024
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Every Saturday, we revisit a story from the archives. This originally aired on April 28, 2021. None of the dates, titles, or other references from that time have been changed.
Two new reports – one commissioned by the French government and one by Rwanda’s government – have underscored the role France played in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
But one critic says Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s response to the reports may have more to do with his grip on power than it does on justice. That critic was once part of Kagame’s government but now, he has gone into hiding. That is this week’s episode of The Take.
In this episode:
David Himbara (@DavidHimbara), educator, political economist, & development strategist
Episode credits:
This episode was updated by Tamara Khandaker. The original production team was Amy Walters, with Ney Alvarez, Alexandra Locke, Dina Kesbeh, Negin Owliaei, Priyanka Tilve, Thomas Fenton, Stacey Samuel, and our host Malika Bilal.
Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our lead of audience development and engagement is Aya Elmileik. Adam Abou-Gad is our engagement producer.
Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer, and Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Al Jazeera Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Hi, I'm Tamara Ken Dacker, producer at The Take, coming to you with another take, where we look back at stories from the archives. |
| 0:19.0 | This week, we're back in Rwanda, |
| 0:22.9 | where President Paul Kagame has won a fourth seven-year term. |
| 0:29.1 | Kagame is the leader who's been widely credited as a hero, |
| 0:33.4 | who ended the Rwandan genocide and then transformed the country |
| 0:37.2 | into a model of progress and development. |
| 0:40.0 | That narrative, however, has been increasingly questioned by people like opposition candidate |
| 0:45.8 | Vikdwar Ingebir, who was shut out from running in this election. |
| 0:50.9 | And other critics who say the official narrative of the genocide doesn't tell the full story. |
| 0:56.0 | They accuse the government of silencing them. |
| 1:00.0 | With Kagame set to enter a second decade in power, we're looking back at the two dueling narratives about the genocide, |
| 1:09.0 | a debate that continues to reverberate in Rwanda's political landscape today. |
| 1:14.9 | This episode originally aired April 28, 2021. |
| 1:19.8 | All of the dates and references are from that time. I had a sister who had five children who perished in the genocide. |
| 1:39.2 | In 1994, during the Rwandan genocide, an estimated 800,000 people were killed. |
| 1:47.0 | Genocide wiped out my family that stayed in Rwanda. They were all killed. |
| 1:53.0 | And the story we hear is from the people who survived. |
| 1:57.0 | There was no one left to tell the story. |
| 2:00.0 | The world watched but did not stop the slaughter. |
| 2:03.9 | Now, two new reports are blaming France for enabling the genocide. |
| 2:08.7 | France was a financier and military arms provider in the fighting. |
... |
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